Selling Intelligence (formerly Selling the Cloud)

Mark Petruzzi, Alan Rudolph
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Selling Intelligence is the evolution of Selling the Cloud and designed for revenue leaders who are navigating the AI era. Hosted by Mark Petruzzi and Alan Rudolph, the show brings candid conversations with C-suite leaders across sales, marketing, and customer success on how AI is reshaping the way companies grow, sell, and compete. From agentic GTM strategies to AI-powered pipeline and revenue execution, each episode focuses on what’s actually working and how leaders are turning intelligence into performance. If you’re responsible for growth and trying to lead through the fastest shift in go-to-market we’ve ever seen, this podcast is for you.

  1. 4 days ago

    Ep. 150 - Building Trust, Networks, and Revenue Growth with Todd Cassler - Part 2

    In Part 2 of Selling Intelligence, Todd Cassler, Chief Revenue Officer at Wilshire, rejoins Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson to explore how revenue leaders build organizations that can execute across different buyers, channels, and levels of complexity. Todd shares his “future back” approach to revenue strategy, starting with the outcome the organization needs to achieve and working backward to align talent, priorities, reporting, and pipeline discipline. He also explains how leaders should approach third-party distribution as a true partnership, giving external sales teams the same support, resources, and accountability they would provide on their own. The conversation then turns to AI and its role in modern selling. Todd explains why experience, context, and the ability to ask great questions can dramatically increase the value sellers get from AI. He shares how AI can help identify signals and “money in motion” events, allowing salespeople to focus their limited time on relationships and opportunities where change may actually be happening. Todd also shares his approach to coaching the next generation of talent, why people need to take ownership of their careers, and how investing early in personal development can compound over time. What You’ll Learn: Building Revenue Strategy Backward: How a future back approach connects long-term goals with talent, priorities, KPIs, and pipeline execution.Selling Across Different Buyer Tiers: How team structure and specialization should evolve based on organizational size and buyer sophistication.Making Distribution a True Partnership: Why third-party sales teams need the same support, resources, communication, and accountability as internal teams.Using Leading Indicators to Measure Progress: How activity, pipeline movement, relationships, and business trends can reveal performance before revenue appears.Where AI Creates Sales Leverage: How experienced sellers can use AI, context, and better questions to identify signals and prioritize opportunities.Taking Ownership of Your Career: Why personal development is the career lever individuals can control and how early investments in learning can compound over time.Key Topics: Future back revenue strategyBuilding teams for multi-tiered buyersGeneralists versus technical specialistsChannel sales and third-party distributionPipeline hygiene and KPI measurementLeading indicators of sales performanceAI as a multiplier for experienced sellersIdentifying money in motion signalsAI and sales territory prioritizationCoaching and mentoring emerging talentPersonal, corporate, and compensation developmentHiring for attitude and driveCuriosity as a leadership skillGuest Spotlight: Todd Cassler Todd Cassler is Chief Revenue Officer at Wilshire, where he leads global growth and distribution across wealth management, retirement, alternatives, and data and analytics. With more than 20 years of experience across wealth management, asset management, and institutional advisory, Todd brings a practical perspective on building revenue organizations, developing talent, strengthening distribution partnerships, and using technology to improve sales execution. Resources & Mentions: Book: Never Eat AloneWilshireLinkedInAI for sales and opportunity identificationCareer development and mentorship🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more insights from revenue leaders on building stronger teams, using AI effectively, and creating sustainable revenue growth. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Disclosures: Recording Date: August 10, 2026 This does not constitute advice or a recommendation or offer to sell or a solicitation to deal in any security or financial product. Except where otherwise indicated, the information contained in this presentation is based on matters as they exist as of the date of preparation of such material and not as of the date of distribution or any future date. The views and opinions expressed are those of the speaker and do not represent Wilshire as a whole. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Ep. 150 - Building Trust, Networks, and Revenue Growth with Todd Cassler - Part 2

  2. 21 Oct

    Ep. 149 - Building Trust, Networks, and Revenue Growth with Todd Cassler - Part 1

    In this episode of Selling Intelligence, Todd Cassler, Chief Revenue Officer at Wilshire, joins Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson to explore the fundamentals that drive trust, stronger relationships, and sustainable revenue growth. Todd explains the three questions every buyer is trying to answer: Can I trust you? Do you add value? Will you put my interests ahead of your own? He shares how preparation, thoughtful follow-up, and consistent execution help sellers earn that trust over time, especially in complex enterprise sales where relationships can take multiple interactions to develop. The conversation also introduces Todd’s concept of “Network Alpha,” the ability to activate the right relationships at the right time to create favorable outcomes. Todd explains why having a large network is not enough, how sellers can create “presence in their absence,” and why leaders should deliberately train teams to build and activate stronger professional networks. Todd also breaks down why sales teams need focus when managing a broad portfolio. Rather than expecting sellers to master everything, leaders should identify the few opportunities that are truly sellable while training their teams to recognize signals and uncover opportunities that may be hiding on the margins. What You’ll Learn: The Three Questions Every Buyer Asks: Why trust, value, and alignment of interests shape every sales relationship.Building Trust Through Execution: How preparation, responsiveness, and following through on commitments strengthen buyer confidence.Understanding Network Alpha: How activating the right relationships at the right time can create new opportunities and accelerate growth.Creating Presence in Your Absence: Why referrals, advocates, and strong professional relationships can extend your influence beyond direct conversations.Focusing on What Is Sellable: Why salespeople can only deeply focus on a few priorities and how leaders can distinguish between what is sellable and what is simply tellable.Finding Opportunities on the Margin: How curiosity, observation, preparation, and better questions help sellers uncover needs buyers may never state directly.Key Topics: Building buyer trust in complex salesTrust, value, and customer-first sellingNetwork Alpha and relationship-driven growthTurning professional networks into business opportunitiesCreating advocates and referral networksBuilding networking skills across a sales organizationSales preparation and follow-up disciplinePrioritizing three to four key sales opportunitiesSellable versus tellable products and solutionsAsking better questions and identifying hidden opportunitiesGuest Spotlight: Todd Cassler Todd Cassler is Chief Revenue Officer at Wilshire, where he leads global growth and distribution across wealth management, retirement, alternatives, and data and analytics. With more than 20 years of experience across wealth management, asset management, and institutional advisory, Todd brings a relationship-driven approach to building sales organizations, developing networks, and creating sustainable revenue growth. Resources & Mentions: Book: Never Eat AloneWilshireLinkedIn🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more insights from revenue leaders on building trust, strengthening sales organizations, and driving sustainable growth. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Disclosures: Recording Date: August 10, 2026 This does not constitute advice or a recommendation or offer to sell or a solicitation to deal in any security or financial product. Except where otherwise indicated, the information contained in this presentation is based on matters as they exist as of the date of preparation of such material and not as of the date of distribution or any future date. The views and opinions expressed are those of the speaker and do not represent Wilshire as a whole. Mark Petruzzi (00:29) Welcome to Selling Intelligence, the weekly conversation for chief revenue authors and the leaders who build revenue teams. I'm Mark Petruzzi here as always with my co host KK Anderson. KK Anderson (00:41) Thanks, Mark. Here's the number that frames today's conversation. It takes six to ten interactions to build trust with someone before you can sell them anything. Six to ten. Now think about how most teams are running outreach right now, and you can see the gap. Mark Petruzzi (00:58) Our guest today has spent more than 20 years building distribution across wealth management, asset management, and institutional advisory. He is the Chief Revenue Officer at Wilshire, a firm with more than one and a half trillion dollars under advisement. Todd, welcome to the show. Todd Cassler (01:17) Mark, hi KK. KK Anderson (01:19) All right. Well let's dig right in, Mark. Mark Petruzzi (01:21) Okay, let's start off with topic one, the three questions every buyer asks. Todd, you have sold in nearly every market and channel there is. Direct to consumer and enterprise, the US, EMEA, Latin America. You told us that everybody's trying to answer the same three things in the first thirty seconds. Walk us through those three questions and why the answer holds no matter who is across the table. Todd Cassler (01:46) Yeah, I think if you start any sales interaction, it's basically three things that people are trying to determine on the other side of the table. first thing is can I trust you? do you add value? And are you going to put my interests ahead of your own? Doesn't matter if it's direct to consumer, enterprise. I think that's just the baseline that everybody's trying to figure out in that first interaction and over the course of the sales cycle. KK Anderson (02:09) couldn't agree more and isn't it interesting that in your world with ultra high wealth huge transactions it's the same as in the world of selling something door to door or even selling B2C like it's the same wherever you go it's the fundamentals of sales that never change right Todd Cassler (02:27) I mean, would agree with that. you think about when you meet somebody for the first time and you're trying to develop that rapport, you're trying to find commonality, and it usually goes something like this: where are you from? Where'd you go to school? you're trying to figure out whether or not you know that person and where they're from to develop some kind of commonality and trust. I think the next thing that you're trying to do is you're trying to figure out, okay, is this person going to add value to what I'm trying to accomplish, whether that's network, that's business. And you guys know this. The most of the decisions that people are making are career decisions. they're trying to decide whether or not they're going buy something or make a big strategic change. And then I think the last thing is, does this person add value? And that value comes in the form of the ability to deliver the product, but I think also information on the industry and whatever the the field you're in. KK Anderson (03:14) So a question, so for a leader, whose team is measured on activity, which is probably the bulk of our audience, and likely your team as well, like what does a healthy first six interactions look like? Like what does that how do you do that without trying to go in for a sale? Todd Cassler (03:29) I think the first thing in any meeting, and if you start with the basic premise that most people don't want to change. And, salespeople have to figure out how to convince someone to change that behavior. And there's really two reasons why they change. One is, money goes to the most attractive place for money, or two, they're trying to solve for some kind of pain that is giving them discomfort in their business or their life. I think the first thing that you're doing is you have to recognize that. The person typically is not going to see a salesperson. So if you're walking into the room, the first interaction is really an indication that they want to make some kind of change. And so, you're going to start to build that rapport. And then, one of the big things that you have to focus on is okay, how do you move people through that sales cycle and how you do it quickly and efficiently? we talked about six to ten times. And You guys know this from enterprise sales, it tends to be an eight to twenty-four month sales cycle. So how do you compress that and do it in a way that you demonstrate that you're gonna add value through that process? I think that's really hard. but there's some techniques that you can use in order to do that. KK Anderson (04:33) Like, what are some things that you do? Or that you would coach your team on? Just curious. Todd Cassler (04:37) I think the first thing is preparation. So you're gonna go into that first meeting, you have that first opportunity, you've done your homework around, okay, can I create some common ground with this individual, whether we know somebody in the inner industry together, we went to school together, maybe we grew up in the same town. we talked about the three questions that you're trying to determine at the beginning. Well, you've done a little bit of prep. I think the second thing that you're doing is in that meeting, you're gonna have the opportunity to do two things. One is through your questions and your answers to demonstrate that you're an expert in that industry in some kind of capacity. So you're using those comments and that feedback to create that value add that I'm gonna add value to the relationship. And then the last thing is you're gonna have the ability to actually create the next action. At the end of that meeting. And I think one of the things that salespeople tend to forget is okay, it's really hard to get that person on the phone or get them face to face. You have to schedule that next meeting. And you should really follow up within 24 hours. And so that's an opportunity to demonstrate that you are going to be trusted. Cause if I tell you that I'm going to send you

    Ep. 149 - Building Trust, Networks, and Revenue Growth with Todd Cassler - Part 1

  3. 14 Oct

    Ep. 148 - Building the Revenue Engine with Chris Kobus - Part 2

    In Part 2 of Selling Intelligence, Chris Kobus, Chief Revenue Officer at Genlogs, joins Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson to explore how revenue leaders can balance immediate sales performance with the strategic decisions that drive long-term growth. From forecasting pipeline requirements and planning future headcount to developing a disciplined approach to value selling, Chris shares how he connects day-to-day execution with the broader needs of a growing business. Chris explains why effective revenue planning requires more than setting bookings targets and calculating pipeline coverage. Leaders must understand conversion rates, average deal sizes, sales cycles, rep productivity, and onboarding timelines to determine when and where to invest in their teams. He also introduces a four-stage value selling framework designed to help customers understand the business impact of unfamiliar technology. By identifying customer challenges, connecting them to measurable business priorities, demonstrating differentiated capabilities, and quantifying financial outcomes, sales teams can build stronger business cases and create meaningful buying conversations. The conversation also examines the growing role of artificial intelligence in sales organizations. Chris discusses why AI adoption requires both urgency and discipline, emphasizing the importance of internal ownership, measurable value, and ongoing adoption. He highlights how AI tools can help revenue teams analyze customer interactions, identify missing information in sales opportunities, and improve execution across the sales process. For CROs, sales executives, and go-to-market leaders, this episode offers practical insights into building a revenue organization that can deliver results today while preparing for future growth. What You’ll Learn: Balancing Short-Term Execution with Long-Term Growth: How revenue leaders can support current-quarter opportunities while planning future pipeline requirements, headcount investments, and strategic business priorities.Building a Data-Driven Revenue Capacity Plan: Why pipeline conversion rates, average contract values, sales cycles, quota attainment, and rep ramp times are essential to determining the right hiring and investment strategy.Applying a Four-Stage Value Selling Framework: How to guide customers from identifying business challenges and understanding their importance to evaluating differentiated solutions and quantifying potential financial returns.Creating Better Discovery Conversations: Why understanding what motivated a prospect to engage can help sellers uncover business problems, evaluate existing solutions, and build a more relevant value proposition.Driving Meaningful AI Adoption in Sales: How organizations can evaluate AI investments, establish internal ownership, measure business impact, and use customer interaction data to improve sales execution.Key Topics: Balancing quarterly revenue execution with multiyear growth planningConnecting customer feedback with product development and future revenue opportunitiesPipeline forecasting, sales capacity modeling, and headcount planningSales onboarding, rep productivity, and quota attainment assumptionsBuilding financial business cases for emerging technology solutionsDiscovery strategies for identifying customer challenges and buying motivationsAI adoption, internal accountability, and measurable business valueUsing AI to analyze sales conversations, CRM data, and opportunity gapsGuest Spotlight: Chris Kobus Chris Kobus is the Chief Revenue Officer at Genlogs, where he leads revenue growth and go-to-market strategy for a company developing technology and data capabilities for transportation and logistics markets. With a professional background that includes consulting, technology implementation, and value engineering, Chris brings a practical perspective to revenue leadership. His experience includes developing business cases for technology investments, aligning solutions with customer priorities, and helping organizations understand the financial impact of adopting new capabilities. At Genlogs, Chris focuses on building scalable revenue operations, developing sales talent, supporting specialized go-to-market strategies, and connecting customer insights with broader business opportunities. In this conversation, he shares his approach to strategic revenue planning, value-based selling, and thoughtful AI adoption, offering lessons for leaders navigating growth in evolving markets. Resources & Mentions: Genlogs: Chris Kobus’s company, providing technology and data capabilities for transportation and logistics markets.AGS: The growth advisory organization associated with Selling Intelligence, focused on helping businesses build and improve their revenue engines.Battery Ventures: Investment firm mentioned during the conversation in connection with Chris’s professional mentorship.Bill Bench: Mentioned by Chris as a trusted mentor who has provided guidance and perspective on revenue leadership.Four-Stage Value Selling Framework: Chris’s approach to identifying business challenges, connecting them to business priorities, demonstrating differentiated capabilities, and quantifying financial value.Financial Evaluation Metrics: Return on Investment (ROI), Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), and cash flow analysis as tools for evaluating technology investments.AI-Powered Sales Intelligence Tools: Technologies that combine customer call recordings, CRM information, and other data sources to identify gaps and opportunities in the sales process.LinkedIn: Recommended by Chris as a way to connect with him and exchange insights on revenue leadership and go-to-market strategy.AGS Website: www.get-ags.com🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more conversations with revenue leaders who are rethinking how businesses sell, scale, and grow. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and share this episode with a sales or go-to-market leader who could benefit from the conversation. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Ep. 148 - Building the Revenue Engine with Chris Kobus - Part 2

  4. 7 Oct

    Ep. 147 - Building the Revenue Engine with Chris Kobus - Part 1

    In Part 1 of Selling Intelligence, Chris Kobus, Chief Revenue Officer at Genlogs, joins Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson to explore what it takes to build a revenue engine that can scale across people, markets, and changing business priorities. Chris shares his leadership philosophy around developing talent from within and explains why experience alone does not determine whether someone can succeed in enterprise sales. He discusses the importance of finding people with the right attitude, drive, and willingness to learn, then giving them the coaching, playbooks, and real-world exposure they need to grow. The conversation also examines the expanding role of the modern CRO. Chris explains why revenue leadership goes far beyond managing sales and hitting the current quarter’s number. From pipeline and ICP strategy to marketing, business development, channels, pre-sales, and revenue operations, the CRO must understand and manage the full revenue lifecycle while preparing the organization for what comes next. Chris also shares how Genlogs approaches verticalization across very different buyer markets, why specialized go-to-market playbooks matter, and how leaders can introduce change without creating unnecessary chaos across the organization. What You’ll Learn: Developing Talent from Within: Why attitude, curiosity, drive, and willingness to learn can matter as much as previous enterprise sales experience.Leading from the Field: How revenue leaders can build trust and develop stronger teams by working alongside sellers instead of managing from an “ivory tower.”Coaching Beyond the Playbook: Why frameworks like MEDIC only create value when leaders continually challenge sellers on discovery, economic buyers, budget processes, urgency, and deal strategy.Owning the Full Revenue Lifecycle: How the CRO role extends beyond sales to pipeline, ICP strategy, marketing, business development, channels, pre-sales, revenue operations, retention, and expansion.Balancing Today and Tomorrow: Why CROs need to manage current-quarter performance while anticipating future growth needs and identifying where the revenue engine could break.Verticalizing with Purpose: How specialized go-to-market playbooks can help teams navigate different buyer environments without creating organizational chaos.Key Topics: Building and developing high-performing revenue teamsPromoting BDRs and other talent from withinHiring for attitude, drive, and growth potentialMEDIC, discovery, and enterprise sales coachingConsulting skills and value engineering in go-to-market leadershipThe difference between a CRO and VP of SalesOwning the end-to-end revenue lifecyclePipeline, ICP, TAM, and annual operating plan alignmentBalancing short-term execution with long-term growthBuilding trust through transparency with executive leadershipVerticalization and specialized go-to-market playbooksScaling the revenue engine without creating organizational chaosGuest Spotlight: Chris Kobus Chris Kobus is Chief Revenue Officer at Genlogs, a freight intelligence company. His career began in consulting at Accenture before he moved into value engineering and technology go-to-market leadership. That background shaped his approach to customer value, team development, and building scalable revenue organizations. At Genlogs, Chris oversees a broad revenue mandate spanning sales, marketing, business development, channels, pre-sales, and revenue operations. Resources & Mentions: GenlogsAccentureMEDICIdeal Customer Profile (ICP)Total Addressable Market (TAM)Annual Operating Plan (AOP)Accelerant Growth Solutions (AGS)🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more insights from revenue leaders building the next generation of go-to-market organizations. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Mark Petruzzi (00:29) Welcome to Selling Intelligence. I'm Mark Petruzzi. KK Anderson (00:33) And I'm KK Anderson. Mark Petruzzi (00:34) And most revenue leaders inherit a title before they inherit the job. You get handed a quota, a team, and a seat at the table, and you spend the next few years figuring out how much of the business actually belongs to you. Our guest today runs one of the broadest CRL mandates we have covered on this show: sales, marketing, biz dev channels, pre-sales, and revenue ops. would have done in line into customer success as well. KK Anderson (01:04) Chris Kobus is Chief Revenue Officer at Genlogs, a freight intelligence company that recently closed a $60 million Series B. He started his career in consulting at Accenture before moving into a value engineering role at a supply chain technology startup. And that background shapes how he builds go-to-market motions today. He's also selling into a market that has never had to buy what he's selling before. Which means his team has to help buyers see a problem they didn't know they had. Chris, welcome to selling intelligence. Chris Kobus (01:38) Hi everyone, thanks for having me. Mark Petruzzi (01:40) Yeah, we're happy to have you here, Chris. Thank you. So let's jump with our first topic, leadership philosophy. And a real core point on that, team development over just our recruiting. So you said that developing a rep who didn't originally know enterprise go to market can be just as important a win as landing a new customer. What does that development process actually look like on your team? Chris Kobus (02:04) Yeah, it's a good question, Mark. I think there's a couple of things that I would address there. I think that at the end of the day, having quality people is incredibly important. But I also think that it's just as important, if not more important, to make sure you have the right people and the right skill set and they're not always one and the same. so in my experience, I've worked with several folks that maybe didn't have the right set of experiences as they got into more of an enterprise sales motion, but were very eager to learn. They had the right perspective, the right appetite, if you will, to understand what it takes to win, to understand what questions and tasks and what they need to pursue with customers, and to understand what winning looks like and and sort of what the the task at hand is. in terms of working with those individuals to develop them, I think it takes a couple things. And there's a couple things that I would certainly highlight that I think are relevant for my experience. number one, and this is sort of philosophy I have as a go-to-market leader, is the team has to see you sort of in battle, right? I have always been very against what I think many call sort of the ivory tower approach, which is, you're sitting in front of Salesforce or in front of Slack or in an office or whatever, and saying, like, hey, where are the numbers? What's happening here, et cetera. and I think what's really important as a leader is the team sees you in battle with them. And that can be your presenting to a customer a business case or helping them to find a use case. It could be you working with a customer to help them negotiate. It could be you working with other teams to make sure we're driving all the right, the right motions. so I say that and I relate it back to the question around what does it take to sort of develop those people. I think having that mindset of being in battle with them, I think is really important. I also think what's equally important is you have to have the playbook. Right. So one of the things that I'm very passionate about that I know many, if not all, sales leaders in the enterprise tech space are passionate about is medic, right? And understanding it's more than just an acronym, which is a phrase I've heard thrown around quite a bit. so constantly challenging sellers that maybe don't have the experience with Medic or don't, maybe haven't figured out how to identify a champion in an account or an economic buyer or so on. Challenging them when they think that right they have the right answers in a proper way to say, hey, you think maybe what a budgeting process looks like or who the economic buyer is. But have you asked them if they have budget authority? Have you asked them, if they don't have direct budget authority, how does budget get released? Have you asked them simple, simple questions around like how do they typically partner with technology vendors? What needs to get done? And I think that appropriate constant challenging. is where I've seen people that have the right perspective, they maybe have the right experience, get ramped up very quickly. and the last point I'd mention on this particular topic is to me it's really important. and the reason it's so important is everyone's Rolodex will eventually come dry. Right. And I say that in the following sense is you can have several open head count and have all the confidence in the world that you have the right folks in your network with the right experience and the right perspective that are going to come in and be successful. But that will not work every time. That will either run dry or you will have to rely on folks that maybe, that would had been with the company that are that are entering a new role or getting into the business by some other channel that don't necessarily have the right experience, but have the right perspective, right, on what it takes to win. So I think, being in the field, demonstrating to them sort of that you want to be in the field with them. that you're willing to put in the work yourself. and then constantly challenging them. It's not like here's a lesson on medic. I'll go back to that example, and we're all done, but constantly challenging them on how they're doing discovery, how they're thinking about budget release cycles, how they're thinking about working with closed plans, driving urgency, I think is what balances out how coming in with the right perspective and then rapidly building that right skill set. KK Anderson (05:24) Good stuff, Chris. it's the attitude. And

    Ep. 147 - Building the Revenue Engine with Chris Kobus - Part 1

  5. 30 Sept

    Ep. 146 - Solving the Go-to-Market Riddle with Rick Nee - Part 2

    In Part 2 of Selling Intelligence, Rick Nee, Chief Revenue Officer at Alcatraz AI, joins Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson to explore the people and culture behind a scalable go-to-market organization. Rick explains why vertical specialization should go beyond assigning sellers to industries. Sales leaders need to develop enough expertise to become trusted voices in their markets, understand the problems their customers face, and bring insights that make conversations more valuable and less transactional. He shares how Alcatraz encourages sales directors to treat their vertical like their own business, develop informed opinions, participate in industry conversations, and build deeper customer relationships over time. The conversation also explores Rick’s approach to building talent from within. He explains why visible career paths for SDRs can strengthen culture and retention, how internal promotions can create momentum throughout the organization, and why leaders should look beyond the traditional SDR-to-AE path when developing emerging talent. What You’ll Learn: Building Vertical Thought Leaders: How sales directors can develop deeper industry expertise and become trusted resources for customers rather than purely transactional sellers.Treating a Vertical Like a Business: Why sellers should think like business owners within their vertical and use events, speaking opportunities, associations, customer conversations, and content to build credibility.Using Team Selling for Complex Buyers: How sales, engineering, product, and customer success can work together to build trust and support conversations across different levels of the customer organization.Developing SDRs From Within: Why Rick prefers creating internal career paths and how visible promotions can show SDRs that there is a real opportunity to grow inside the organization.Finding the Right Next Role: Why SDR development does not always have to lead to an AE position, and how leaders can identify strengths that may fit account management, renewals, customer success, or other roles.Building a Culture That Retains Talent: How internal mobility, leadership attention, and meaningful development opportunities can contribute to stronger retention in a startup environment.Key Topics: Vertical specialization and industry expertiseSales directors as industry thought leadersBuilding trusted, non-transactional customer relationshipsCustomer advisory boards and team sellingDeveloping SDRs into future GTM leadersInternal promotion versus external hiringCareer mobility across sales, CS, renewals, and channel rolesSales culture and employee retentionUsing data to continuously improve GTM decisionsThe continued importance of human selling in an AI-driven environmentGuest Spotlight: Rick Nee Rick Nee is Chief Revenue Officer at Alcatraz AI. In this two-part Selling Intelligence conversation, Rick shares his approach to scaling go-to-market organizations through vertical specialization, data-driven decision making, talent development, and strong internal culture. In Part 2, he focuses on developing people from within, helping sellers build meaningful industry expertise, and creating career paths that allow talent to grow alongside the organization. Resources & Mentions: Alcatraz AIDaniel PinkTo Sell Is Human by Daniel PinkPeter DruckerCustomer advisory boardsVertical pod structureSDR career development and internal promotionSelling Intelligence Featured by FeedSpot Selling Intelligence has been selected as one of FeedSpot’s Top 20 SaaS Sales Podcasts. Feedspot is an RSS Reader that lets you follow your favorite podcasts alongside blogs and news in one place. https://podcast.feedspot.com/saas_sales_podcasts/ 🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more conversations with revenue leaders building the next generation of go-to-market organizations. Mark (00:38) Welcome back to Selling Intelligence. If you're just joining us, this is part two of our conversation with Rick Nee, Chief Revenue Officer at Alcatraz. Go back and listen to part one when you get the chance, but you can also start right here with us. KK Anderson (00:53) Now, three things from part one worth carrying forward. Rick's team went from three people to 25 in two years while the business tripled. He organizes by vertical pod rather than by segment or geography. And each pod runs its own PL, which is why he can walk into a board meeting after his six coffees and Starbucks every 30 days and not locking himself Mark (01:15) Yeah. KK Anderson (01:16) in a room. He can walk into a board meeting with data. and return a figure instead of a headcount request. And before he changes any structure, he goes to that data, he forms his hypothesis because at the stage that he is in with Alcatraz, guessing gets really expensive really fast. Mark (01:33) Part two is the part most leaders find hardest to copy. The people, Rick, let's pick it back up. Rick Nee (01:39) Yeah. KK Anderson (01:39) All right, Rick. Okay, so let's talk about the sales director who wears a marketing hat, right? You ask your vertical sales directors, and I love this by the way, to put a marketing hat on and become thought leaders and to brand themselves as thought leaders in their industry. Like tell me why and what does that look like in practice? Rick Nee (01:59) Yeah, so it's something that I'm pretty passionate about. And I think it goes it ties back into this vertical strategy we were talking about, right? KK. So imagine you're just selling into enterprise, you're jumping from a finance meeting into an airport meeting into a higher ed meeting. there's just not enough time in the day. I you know, the data says that your average sales director, count executive spends 40 to 50% of their time internally, data cleanup, internal meetings, et cetera. Right. And so you you know that that we're always putting more on them than than they can do. So with the verticals, what we've sort of are thinking holistically is, hey, how do you become a thought leader in this so that it's a trusted relationship? To your point, with AI and just the amount of noise out there. I think. And users are astute and they know when it's transactional and when they know you're actually trying to serve them. sounds cliche, but it's true. I tell the story to a lot of folks that one of my best sales directors at my prior company, Authenticate, we had a vertical structure and he had so many trusted relationships and he was sort of a thought leader in in the threat space that the threat intel space that He was a intermediary for folks that he had sold to into their next job when they had lost their job. so he was sort of a middleman that, but he was so plugged KK Anderson (03:11) Yeah. Rick Nee (03:11) into the vertical. and now, of course, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? That end user champion that's now leaving and going somewhere else, they're gonna, they're probably gonna buy that the product at another place. But we're asking our sales directors. with the help of our product team and our product marketing team to think, okay, this is your business. This is your vertical. If you were a business owner and this was your company and you were only focused on this vertical, what and why would you do it? And that might mean, okay, I need to go to these specific shows that are focused on my industry. maybe I want to get a speaking spot. And I want to talk specifically about perhaps a pain point or how customers are being served, right? And so you get that angle. it might be associations, it might be a blog post. but all of that is, learning that happens as that sales director has time and seats. So to be clear, right, when you hire somebody. Okay, if they're plugged into that industry already, you're hiring somebody in the financial services that's coming to your company, easy, right? They're already plugged in, they probably have a pretty decent understanding. But for us, we got the right people on the bus and just said, hey, you're pretty passionate about security. You're enough about financial services or tech or whatever your vertical is, but now we're gonna ask you to dig deeper. And you're gonna do some some homework, you're gonna learn, you're gonna work with our team, our leadership team, and you're gonna start to take all of the things that you have learned. And form an opinion. Form an opinion that adds value to your end customers that you can share. Whether it's a customer advisory board, too, that's another thing we're starting. form opinions, be a thought leader. And again, there's others that are helping, but as you get into that 12-month, 18-month, two years with the sales director, then all of a sudden you're learning from them. And that's where I know when it's working. When I have a question about earports. I call our sales leader that runs critical infrastructure and I say to him, Hey, why don't they turn on this feature? Or what what did what are they doing here? And then he'll just educate me on that. And so again, I I just think the end users, they're looking for nuggets. They they've done enough inform research on your product and they probably have done some homework, but they're, you know, they're looking for How you plug them into another part of the network, maybe trends that you're seeing. It's nothing to do with necessarily selling them anything else, although that will help. and it's not transactional. and it's working very, very well for us. it's something that takes time, and you can't do it with 10 verticals of your series A. You might only pick one vertical, but I would say give it a shot. Pick that vertical where you have the best product market fit signal or the most traction and lean into that and then copy and paste once you have enough revenue or cash to to to invest in additional verticals, et cetera. So that's what we did is sort of let's pick the ones that make sense and then build out from there.

    Ep. 146 - Solving the Go-to-Market Riddle with Rick Nee - Part 2

  6. 23 Sept

    Ep. 145 – Solving the Go-to-Market Riddle with Rick Nee - Part 1

    In this episode of Selling Intelligence, Rick Nee, Chief Revenue Officer at Alcatraz, joins Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson to unpack what happens after a company reaches product market fit and the challenge shifts from finding customers to building a go-to-market organization that can scale. Rick explains why revenue leaders should resist bringing a fixed playbook into a new company and instead use customer behavior, sales data, and the buyer journey to determine what the organization actually needs. He shares how Alcatraz has built its revenue structure around vertical pods, creating tighter feedback loops between sales, SDRs, customer success, and other customer-facing roles. The conversation also dives into the importance of cleaning CRM data before making strategic decisions, identifying the metrics that actually matter, and reverse engineering performance by vertical to determine where to invest people, capital, and resources. What You’ll Learn: Scaling After Product Market Fit: Why the GTM motion that wins your first customers may not be the one that gets you to the next stage of growth.Playbooks as Starting Points: Why proven sales frameworks should inform your strategy rather than dictate it.Building Around the Buyer Journey: How customer needs and sales complexity should shape hiring, team structure, and resource allocation.The Power of Vertical Pods: How organizing teams around specific industries can improve knowledge transfer, customer understanding, and feedback loops.Reverse Engineering Revenue Data: How sales cycle length, deal size, win rates, pipeline coverage, and land versus expand behavior can reveal where growth opportunities actually exist.Cleaning Data Before Scaling: Why CROs need to validate CRM data and remove misleading outliers before using it to guide major GTM decisions.Key Topics: Scaling a GTM organization after product market fitBuilding a data-driven revenue strategyWhy one-size-fits-all sales playbooks fall shortVertical pod structures and feedback loopsSales cycle and deal size analysis by verticalPipeline coverage and win ratesLand and expand revenue motionsCRM data quality and RevOpsGeneralists versus specialists in early-stage companiesUsing AI to pressure test assumptions and uncover blind spotsPrioritizing high-impact GTM initiatives instead of changing everything at onceGuest Spotlight: Rick Nee Rick Nee is Chief Revenue Officer at Alcatraz, a Cupertino-based company focused on facial authentication for physical security. As a revenue leader, Rick focuses on solving the go-to-market challenges that emerge after product market fit, using data to determine how teams should be structured, which verticals deserve investment, and where companies can scale most effectively. In this conversation, Rick shares a practical approach to building revenue organizations around real customer behavior rather than assumptions, industry benchmarks, or rigid playbooks. Resources & Mentions: AlcatrazHubSpotClaudeCRM and RevOps data analysisVertical pod GTM structuresAGS Two Millimeter Club🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more conversations with revenue leaders on building smarter, more scalable go-to-market organizations. Mark (00:30) Welcome back to Selling Intelligence. I'm Mark Petruzzi here with my co-founder and co-host KK Anderson. KK Anderson (00:37) Here's a number we're sitting with. A sales organization that goes from three people to 25 in 24 months has effectively rebuilt itself every quarter. Most leaders in that position reach for the standard playbook because it's the fastest thing available. But our guest today treated the playbook as a starting point instead of an answer and went to his own data to decide what to keep. Mark (01:00) Rick Nee is Chief Revenue Officer at Alcatraz, the Cupertino company replacing badges with facial authentication, backed by more than $100 million in capital and trusted by Fortune 100 Enterprises AI data centers, airports, universities, and professional sports teams. Rick, welcome to Selling Intelligence. Rick Nee (01:23) Thanks for having me. I am very excited to be here. this is exciting and these are topics that I'm pretty passionate about. Mark (01:28) Excellent. All right, first topic, solving the go-to-market riddle. You have said that stage the stage that energizes you the most is the one right after product market fit. When finding customers who want to buy is no longer the problem. Describe what actually changes for a revenue leader at that moment. Rick Nee (01:46) It's a great question. So I didn't figure this out so a little bit later in my career. People ask, hey, do you want to work at a startup? And that can mean a lot of different things, a series D with a thousand customers versus a pre-series or series A, where you're trying to find that product market fit. And so I think you have to like think about where you want to be on that journey. and then if we really define what product market fit means. I was listening to someone the other day from HubSpot and they said, product market fit doesn't mean two two customers that have bought your product and hey, we have figured this out. when I define product market fit, I'm looking at, okay, a subset of customers have not only bought your product, they're using it and you've retained them. And so then there's that there's that point, that drop, that inflection point where, okay, we now have a growing set of customers that not only are buying, but are also staying with us. And so when you get to that part of the journey, it often requires a remodel. And the folks and the in the way that you were going to market to get those first customers is not necessarily what's going to get you to the next level. I call folks that are in that series A, I call them pirates. They're just out there, they're with the founder. They might be that founder led AE. They're literally trying to figure out what is going to stick, right? And it often is not what they initially think. when I came to Alcatraz, they had already figured out was interested and who was buying our And so then I that what the GTM riddle, what excites me about that is then you have to take a look at it and you have to say, okay, what type of salesperson do I need? Are we an enterprise motion? Are we a mid-market motion? Are we a director? Are we channel? do we need hunters and farmers or both? what use cases and personas and verticals should we focus on? What custom what sets of customers should we say no to? So when you look at all of that based on some of those first customers, you'll find that you're gonna have to make some changes. And it doesn't mean you just rip and replace, it means there's iterations and you're still testing. But I think That is where I love to thrive, where you start to build what I would call truly for scale. I know that everybody likes to say, hey, scale. You know, everybody wants the But really thinking about how you're gonna build, because if you do it the wrong way, you're gonna build and attenuate out in a in a in a bad way, right? And so you wanna obviously get it right. But that's where I like to come in. I don't wanna go figure out if this product is gonna gain traction in the market. And some people live for that, right? And if you do, then that's where you should go. But for me, it's sort of figuring out this riddle and how do you get to the next five hundred customers or whatever set of AR, whatever your goal may be. KK Anderson (04:14) So you touched on it a little bit, but if you don't mind, go a little bit deeper and walk us through the the pieces of this riddle or puzzle, like as you call it, as you see them today, and maybe even give us give us some glimpse into what you're thinking about as you're moving into to 2027 with your how you're gonna put the pieces of that riddle together for Alcatraz. Rick Nee (04:34) Well, I mean, first you have to start with what you think about your playbook and you think about what you know, what riddle you're trying to solve. There are there are real stakeholders with real goals that may not necessarily be the ones that you you're marching towards, but they are what they are, right? You have the board, you have investors, you have the CEO, you different different folks and stakeholders that are like, This is what we need to do. So I think the lens that you immediately have to take as you're figuring out this riddle is what is the most efficient and effective way to get an ROI and to grow sales fast? And often that means reverse engineering the data, right? everyone talks about AI, but if you look at Claude and you pipe that into your HubSpot and you start to cue the different leading and lagging indicators. You should be able form a pretty strong hypothesis of what you should and shouldn't do as you march down a path, which is an annual number. and and that let's face it, the average CRO lasts 14 or 16 months, depending on which data you're looking at in this as world. So I I would say if you're you're figuring out that riddle, it let's keep it simple, stupid. Let's look at Eight to ten metrics and be clear-eyed on what we should make our immediate, what I'll call low-hanging fruit. And let's go get some quick wins as we're thinking about that remodel. Earn some trust. You can actually miss your first or second quarterly target if it's trending in the right direction with the plan, right? So I'm looking at okay, which verticals? Who do I have here that can actually Stay with the company as we as we scale. Again, a series A pirate, a hunter, might not necessarily be the right fit for a series B. You're going to look at which use cases, the sales cycling, your win rate, your your deal size land versus expand. And then through all of that, you can start to put in place what I would call your vertical structure, which I know we're gonna talk a little bit about today, but I think Most CROs that come into these roles at this

    Ep. 145 – Solving the Go-to-Market Riddle with Rick Nee - Part 1

  7. 16 Sept

    Ep. 144 – Building Predictable Pipeline and Breaking Revenue Silos with Thurman Sneed - Part 2

    General Episode Description: In Part 2 of Selling Intelligence, Thurman Sneed, Chief Revenue Officer at Marigold, returns to show how the same “do the math” mindset can transform everything from account coverage and customer conversations to seller development and AI adoption. Thurman explains why Marigold moved from a round robin model to vertical specialization, how CSMs and SDRs can grow into revenue generating roles, and why a tighter ICP helps teams focus their resources where they can create the most impact. The conversation also explores how sellers can use customer data and benchmark insights to build stronger business cases and quantify value for executives. Thurman shares how his team is applying AI to sales coaching, account preparation, pipeline generation, and churn prediction, while keeping human judgment at the center. The goal is not AI for the sake of AI. It is using technology where it can genuinely improve speed, capacity, decision making, and revenue outcomes. What You’ll Learn: Vertical Specialization: Why moving away from round robin account assignment can help sellers develop deeper industry expertise and become trusted advisors.Turning CSM Knowledge into Revenue: How customer success teams can use their existing customer knowledge and relationships to identify expansion opportunities.Building the Next Generation of Sellers: Why giving SDRs opportunities to own and close smaller deals can accelerate their development and create stronger career paths.Getting Serious About ICP: How focusing on the right markets and customers can improve efficiency across sales, marketing, and customer success.Selling with Customer Math: How benchmark data and ROI calculations can help sellers turn value propositions into compelling executive business cases.AI That Earns Its Place: How AI can improve sales preparation, coaching, research, pipeline generation, and decision making without removing human judgment.Using AI to Predict Churn: Why clean, accessible data is critical for identifying customer risk before it becomes a lost account.Key Topics: Vertical sales specializationIdeal customer profile strategySDR development and career progressionCustomer success expansion opportunitiesROI based sellingBenchmark data in sales conversationsExecutive level value sellingAI enabled sales coachingSales productivity and capacityAI and revenue team efficiencyChurn prediction and customer retentionHuman judgment in AI driven salesGuest Spotlight: Thurman Sneed Thurman Sneed is the Chief Revenue Officer at Marigold, where he leads sales, customer success, revenue operations, and marketing. With a career that began in accounting and auditing before expanding into operations and revenue leadership, Thurman brings a distinctive financial and operational perspective to the CRO role. His leadership philosophy centers on disciplined execution, data driven decision making, cross-functional alignment, and helping teams turn ambitious revenue goals into practical, achievable actions. Resources & Mentions: MarigoldVertical coverage modelsIdeal Customer Profile strategyROI calculators and benchmark dataAI enabled sales coachingChurn predictionThe Two Millimeter Club by AGS🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more GTM insights from leading voices in sales, revenue, and business growth. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Mark (00:38) Welcome back to Selling Intelligence. If you're just joining in, you're in the right place. And if you come straight from part one, we picked up where we left off. KK Anderson (00:48) In part one, Thurman Sneed made three things clear. He came into the revenue seat through accounting and operations rather than through a quota. And that lens is why he thinks in arithmetic. He discovered that the individual level math he assumed his managers were doing with sellers was not actually happening. And he treats every function inside the company as a customer, which is what makes the outside selling work. Mark (01:14) So in part two we get practical. Thurman rebuilt the coverage model, taught people who have never carried a quota to carry one, pointed the same math at his customers, and now deciding where AI belongs in all of this. Thurman, welcome back. Let us pick up right here. Thurman (01:33) Thank you, Mark. Mark (01:34) So Thurman, Rebuilding the coverage model. So Thurman, you inherited a model where accounts were assigned round robin and reps were specialized by platform. What was the first change you made and why that one first? Thurman (01:48) Yeah, the first thing that we did is we decided that we were going to have a vertical coverage model as opposed to round robin. And I made that first because I wanted fo I wanted our sales team to learn the customer, to, to learn the terminology, to be very specific, and to enjoy, what they were doing every day, as opposed to today I wake up and I'm gonna be serving. this industry, the next day, I get a hospital, the next day I get an amusement park. It didn't seem fair, just from a basic level, so why not assign to a vertical and become specialist in that space? KK Anderson (02:23) So and in doing that allows them to almost brand their expertise and be thought of as trusted advisors and being able to solve the business problems that your customers are out there facing. Thurman (02:35) Yes, truly to be able to solve it in a in a very meaningful way because they understand how they drive their outcome. So back to doing the math, how do they actually need to produce their pipeline, their conversions, their sales, whatever that might be, even if it's a not for profit, how do they need to drive more donations? if it's a government entity, what are they trying to produce as an outcome as opposed to it being so different in every conversation? KK Anderson (03:03) Right. And your your product at Marigold is you know, they're they're looking for they're using Marigold because they want to drive business and communications and conversions and so that's that's really important. Mm-hmm. Thurman (03:18) With specific audiences. And it's not always the same way that you drive that content KK Anderson (03:23) Right. And Thurman (03:24) to those audiences. KK Anderson (03:25) it's definitely a way to create differentiation, When you can help with their problems. So you gave people who had been processing renewals for years a quota. So they're not used to a quota. It's kind of like handing the finance guy a quota, like you got, Thurman (03:39) This is that. KK Anderson (03:39) and you told them, you know, you're gonna train them and tell them to take advantage of of what they did not realize they already knew. And so Like what what did that teaching look like week to week? We have so many, we have so many customers. I've seen it a hundred times, where all of a sudden a CSM turns into a, quota carrying member of the sales team. So tell us how you did it. Thurman (04:00) Well, one of the first things is to inject confidence in what they already knew. They have been involved in so many customer conversations. So many times a customer has has actually explained to them the pain that they are actually that they endure. And I love it when it's a case of when we bring on a new customer and that CSM is onboarding them and they're connecting with the challenge that they were having elsewhere. Right. So they have learned that or they were learning that over the years, but not necessarily turning that lens and looking at it from a different angle. What if I took these customers that I have made happy and asked them to introduce me to another department at a university? Or is literally leveraging the relationships that they had built with their customer set? Right. And so the training became more of let's inject the confidence because you know the platform better than some of our brand new sellers right now. You actually live in the platform. You've lived the customer experience. You've gone through the benchmark conversations and the performance conversations with a customer. Change that lens to someone that is reaching out that has not experienced that yet. Mark (05:12) Yeah, and I love how, Thurman, you're taking this more into the prescripted side. So let's go even a little further. you moved your SDRs from setting meetings to owning and closing the smaller deals themselves. What does that do for a seller's development, particularly an early stage seller, that handing off the meeting could never do? Thurman (05:34) Yeah, and we didn't move them holistically, but what I wanted to do was to ensure that our SDR team had a career path and that they understood that career path very early versus late. Right. And so ultimately that close closing of the deal is what we all think of, that's the account executive, But if we could help them get a little feel for why am I passing off this customer that I can go ahead and assist now? I understand why why do I need to set up a meeting and make them wait a few days or a period of time when I can go ahead and service service them? And that's what an AE needs to do, If I can solve that pain, I can hear that pain, I'm hearing the challenges. Let's just go ahead and close the deal. and when they get ready and they're further into their career, a year, 18 months into their career, and they're ready to go to That transition is so much faster. But at the same time, what it allows is it allows me to know who really does not want to do sales. Right. And do you want to be an SDR for from a career perspective? That's also okay. Do you want to transition and become a CSM one day? That's also okay. Right. But it allows those that are in this position that we traditionally think of as our bench for sales. to be able to make that career decision very early. KK Anderson (06:54) So y you put it you in one of your th your therminisms, In the in our prep video was we started talking. you put it as eighty t

    Ep. 144 – Building Predictable Pipeline and Breaking Revenue Silos with Thurman Sneed - Part 2

  8. 9 Sept

    Ep. 143 – Building Predictable Pipeline and Breaking Revenue Silos with Thurman Sneed - Part 1

    General Episode Description: In this episode of Selling Intelligence, Thurman Sneed, Chief Revenue Officer at Marigold, joins Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson to unpack a simple but often overlooked discipline in revenue leadership: do the math. Drawing from his background in finance, operations, and revenue leadership, Thurman explains how sellers can turn an intimidating quota into a practical action plan by understanding their pipeline, win rates, gaps, and the time they have left to close them. The conversation also explores how Thurman’s finance background shapes the way he approaches forecasting, pipeline quality, and cross-functional leadership. He shares why revenue teams need a single source of truth, how leaders can eliminate bloated pipeline, and why sales, marketing, customer success, and RevOps perform better when they understand each other’s goals and operate as one connected revenue organization. What You’ll Learn: Do the Math: How to break quota goals into pipeline requirements, win rates, and achievable daily actions.Pipeline Gap Planning: How sellers can use existing pipeline, marketing, SDRs, and customer success relationships to build a realistic path to quota.The Value of Time: Why starting pipeline generation early gives sellers more ways to close the gap and avoid end-of-year pressure.Forecasting with a Finance Mindset: How financial discipline helps leaders identify inflated pipeline and focus on opportunities that are actually real.One Source of Truth: Why shared data and reporting create better conversations across sales, marketing, finance, and operations.Breaking Revenue Silos: How understanding the goals of adjacent teams can improve selling, customer handoffs, retention, and overall revenue performance.Key Topics: Pipeline math and quota attainmentIndividual seller forecastingWin rates and pipeline coveragePipeline quality and deal qualificationRevenue forecastingFinance driven revenue leadershipSales accountability and coachingCross-functional revenue alignmentSales, marketing, and customer success collaborationBreaking organizational silosSingle source of truth for revenue teamsGuest Spotlight: Thurman Sneed Thurman Sneed is the Chief Revenue Officer at Marigold, where he leads sales, customer success, revenue operations, and marketing. With a career that began in accounting and auditing before expanding into operations and revenue leadership, Thurman brings a distinctive financial and operational perspective to the CRO role. His leadership philosophy centers on disciplined execution, data driven decision making, cross-functional alignment, and helping teams turn ambitious revenue goals into practical, achievable actions. Resources & Mentions: MarigoldPipeline management and forecastingRevenue OperationsCross-functional revenue alignmentThe Two Millimeter Club by AGS🎧 Listen now and follow Selling Intelligence for more GTM insights from leading voices in sales, revenue, and business growth. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Mark (00:30) Welcome to Selling Intelligence. I am Mark Petruzzi here as always with KK Anderson. Today we are talking about a phrase that most revenue leaders say and almost nobody actually does. KK Anderson (00:43) Do the math. Our guest uses it with his team constantly, and the first time you hear it, you might think it sounds a little cold, but it's quite the opposite. He uses it to take a seller who is convinced they are going to miss and show them on paper why they are not and how they can close the gap. Mark (01:02) So Thurman Sneed is the chief revenue officer at Marigold. He started his career as an auditor at Arthur Anderson, spent years running go-to-market operations. He has sat in the chief operating officer seat, and now leads revenue. Thurman, welcome to the show. Thurman (01:20) Thank you, Mark. Glad to be here. Mark (01:22) Welcome to Selling Intelligence. I am Mark Petruzzi with KK Anderson and this is the show for revenue leaders who would rather diagnose than guess. KK Anderson (01:32) Here's the thing that got our attention. Our guest spent years in operations assuming that sales managers underneath him were sitting down with individual sellers and walking them through their numbers. Then he took the revenue seat and found out that they were not. Not the team level math, the individual level math. Mark (01:49) Thurman Sneed, aka the Thurminator, I've heard that recently, is the chief revenue officer at Marigo, where he owns sales, customer success, revenue operations, and marketing. He came up through accounting and operations rather than through a quota, which makes him a rare profile in this seat and a very powerful one. Thurman, thanks for being here. Thurman (02:14) Thank you, Mark, for having me. I'm excited. Mark (02:16) So you have a phrase your team hears from you constantly. Do the math. Take us inside the first time you sat down with a rep and actually did it. What went on that that page? Thurman (02:28) Well, the first thing that went on that page was a little bit of a challenge in asking what is your current pipeline? And you might think that the person would reel that off just really quickly, but it wasn't that quick. So the but that was the first part of the math. What is your current pipeline? Okay. So once we get to that number, I ask a second question. What is your win rate? Your personal win rate. On top of what is the win rate for that vertical, that industry? What what have others experienced potentially? Especially in the c in this particular case, it was a new rep. And I wanted to make sure that this individual knew the history of this particular vertical. And so we went on a journey for every step. That win rate, I let The individual rep picked what they wanted to use versus the historical because they were more conservative than the historical. The second piece of that was all right, there's a gap there once you exhaust your existing pipeline. Let's take that gap, apply that same win rate the opposite way, right? And that's that's how much pipeline you need to be able to see that has the potential to close in the in the rest of the year. So you can think about that and say, I like to think of things in a very similar way that I do in real estate because I love investing in real estate. But how many different ways can you close that gap now with 11 months left? Way one, marketing didn't turn off. So you're going to continue to get some business from marketing inbound leads. Number two, you have an SDR that's assigned to work with you. What are you two going to work together to go get from two perspectives? One from a new division or cross-selling type of perspective, and one from a new logo in your territory perspective. But how are you going to map that out and drive the amount of pipeline that you want to see and close, still applying that same win rate to it? And then the last piece I wanted them to understand. Is don't forget that there's a CSM in the organization or CSMs, it could be plural, that are also working in your same vertical. Have you had a conversation with them? Have you become friends? Are you all working as a team to realize that part of you closing your number is actually them introducing you to people that they know, giving you referrals? And so by the time we finished that conversation, someone that was thinking, my God, how in the world am I going to hit my quota? It had been put into more digestible chunks and an action plan that they could go and take and say, most importantly, if I start this today versus starting this six months from now, I'm going to blow my quota out. Right. And that's what I KK Anderson (05:12) I love it. Thurman (05:13) want this individual to leave the table with. KK Anderson (05:15) I love it. And you if you've got someone's average deal size, you've got their win rate, you've got, their quota, you can so easily back into the number of activities that they need to generate to be able to, you know, and then have your conversion rates every step of way. You need to make this many phone calls and this many people, this percent will answer, this percent won't. The ones that answer, this percent will be a qualified, this percent won't. For the ones that are qualified, and it just goes trickles trickles down. But to the point where that every single day, well, I mean, like for me, for example, if I don't have at least 10 calls that are related to a an op a business opportunity on my calendar, there's a big problem. Right. Thurman (05:58) Yes. KK Anderson (05:59) And so, and I know that I need to reach out to, you know, a hundred people a week. And if I do that, then then I'm gonna be able to feed, feed that, feed that pipeline. And so, and you mentioned a new rep, and the new rep has a lot of resources behind them, like you said, through SDR and CSM and getting referrals. Tell me about how you apply this for like your your long-standing reps who aren't who maybe they know what they need to be doing, but they're not doing it. Thurman (06:25) It's exactly the same math, believe it or not. And the and the thing is the beauty of it being a new rep is that the new rep gets to start it from the beginning of their journey. For a rep that has been doing it, they might have picked up the habits of not doing the math and sitting down, not just at the beginning of a fiscal year, but all the time. Because once that becomes a consistent thing, they will never find themselves without pipeline. But we all know. We find we find reps that end up in a situation where they don't have pipeline and it's because they stopped doing the math. KK Anderson (06:57) That's right. Mark (06:58) So Thurman, you put time into the equation as well, not just the overall pipeline. So what does a seller understand differently once they see what eleven months buys them compared to ten months compared to less than that? Thurman (07:15) Yeah, so what a what a rep

    Ep. 143 – Building Predictable Pipeline and Breaking Revenue Silos with Thurman Sneed - Part 1
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About

Selling Intelligence is the evolution of Selling the Cloud and designed for revenue leaders who are navigating the AI era. Hosted by Mark Petruzzi and Alan Rudolph, the show brings candid conversations with C-suite leaders across sales, marketing, and customer success on how AI is reshaping the way companies grow, sell, and compete. From agentic GTM strategies to AI-powered pipeline and revenue execution, each episode focuses on what’s actually working and how leaders are turning intelligence into performance. If you’re responsible for growth and trying to lead through the fastest shift in go-to-market we’ve ever seen, this podcast is for you.

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